From

The overtown youth group streaming into the sanctuary had no idea the man in the front wearing a Hawaiian shirt, clicking his fingers, teaching the congregation ‘ Sweeten Me Lord’ was the person who single handedly was responsible for their Protestant youth leader to be carrying, and playing, a guitar in said sanctuary.

Yohann Anderson is a global treasure. He was fired three times from a national Christian youth organization for bringing guitars and contemporary music into sacred settings. He’s had bricks thrown through the windows of his home by people who called him a communist for including secular music in his ‘ Creation’ songbook, which became known as ‘the Young Life Songbook’.

He can tell you from first hand knowledge that the song, ‘The Games People Play’, was not first a pop hit but rather a confessional song contributed by the Catholic church to the 1969 World Council of Churches gathering.

He teaches song leaders to sing just a smidge ahead of the beat because people’s vocal chords automatically mimic whatever they hear being sung and they will find the melody more easily.

He arranges chairs asymmetrically because people do not engage when they are seated in linear patterns.

And on Friday August3, I drove across to Tacoma to pick up him, his baritone ukulele which he invented called the ‘Yutar’ and five boxes of, hot off the press, latest editions of his 1200 song compendium songbook.

My friend Marta and I had worked tirelessly for over two months to make sure the arrangements to get him here for a series of songshops, as he calls them, for Family Camp here on the Island, were solid. Camp couldn’t accommodate him over the weekend and so I, who won’t even ride alone in a car with a married man, volunteered to host him, sleep awkwardly on the love seat, and take him to Camp on Sunday.

Saturday morning after he had eaten his Cheerios with rice milk and marveled there was a place that understood he tried to avoid wheat = let alone a restaurant that would serve him a gluten free burger bun= he threw down one of the books and said with all authority in heaven and on earth ‘ Turn to page 234". Three hours later I explained that if I was going to host six people for a small private dinner party I was going to have to unload the dishwasher. He continued to play and sing as I puttered, telling me the story behind each song as he went, waxing philosophical about the terribly constricted and limited nature of what the organized church has become in America and remembering people and places I also knew of. I delighted to remember the 1982 Youth Specialities Conference in Portland when I attended ten years into my career as a youth minister, singing under his leadership, listening to Juan Carlos Ortiz talk about the Pearl of Great Price, Tony Campolo talking about science and the Universe and a big God, Wayne Rice, Mike Yaconnelli, and on and on and on during the Golden Age of wide open Youth Ministry.

The part of my life I don’t like is the fall out from being a pioneer. I love being involved in new ideas, breaking gender barriers, having vision, doing something no one else has thought of before. I hate the negative reactions from gatekeepers who say I should think smaller, call me crazy or tell me something won’t work. …and then imitate the very ideas I suggested that they put down.

Much to my surprise, I found this man who says, "I love being a pioneer’ offering non stop encouragement to me and filling up the house with life giving music with an abandon that belied his lifetime of being criticized for that very music.

We spent the weekend talking endlessly on ‘from’. Where did the songs come ‘from’? Where did our ministry come ‘from’? Which part of ‘from’ still influences us and shapes our future?

When the other musicians arrived and we carried the dinner table out to the deck and instruments were brought out as we grazed past dessert, heaven and earth met. We sang until I told them the King County Noise Ordinance said we had to stop.

Sunday afternoon after he rested his 74-year-old body I took him to camp and watched as another fifty or so people were captured for three days under the wonderful enchantment of Truth in song and fellowship.

The house is different now. My attitude towards my journey is different now. I don’t mind being a pioneer…any part of it.

"From" is a blessing and "More" is delightfully on the horizon.

He signed the book he gave me as a hostess gift "Keep singing your song!"

I think I’ll do just that.

Love,
Deborah